population on December 31, 1915, was 318,668, a decrease of 1.64 per cent from the preceding year. DENMARK.-Den Faste Voldgiftsrets Kendelser, 1915, 1916. Udgivne ved Rettens Foranstaltning. 2 volumes. Copenhagen, 1916, 1917. These volumes are the case reports for 1915 and 1916 of the permanent industrial arbitration court of Denmark, created by law in 1910 to settle certain classes of dispute arising between members of the general employers' federation and the general trade-union federation. (See MONTHLY REVIEW for August, 1915, pp. 14, 15.) The volumes contain no statistical summary of the cases tried. It appears, however, that 27 cases were disposed of in 1915 and 23 in 1916. GREAT BRITAIN.-Board of Trade. Handbooks on trades in Lancashire and Cheshire, Textile trades, 46 pp.; Handbooks on London trades, food, drink, and tobacco trades, 22 pp.; Laundry work, dyeing, and cleaning, 16 pp.; Printing, bookbinding, and stationery trades, Part I, Boys, 34 pp., Part II, Girls, 20 pp. Price, 2d. each. Handbook to Bristol trades for boys and girls, 44 pp. Price 4d. London, 1915. The handbooks on trades in Lancashire and Cheshire, and those on London trades were prepared on behalf of the Board of Trade for the use of advisory committees for juvenile employment, and the handbook to Bristol trades for boys and girls is a report by the skilled trades and apprenticeship subcommittee of the Bristol advisory committee for juvenile employment appointed by the Board of Trade in connection with the Bristol labor exchange. It is the purpose of these handbooks to furnish information that will assist boys and girls in the choice of suitable employment. However, to meet local and individual needs this information, it is suggested, should be supplemented by consultation with labor and juvenile employment bureaus. The processes, occupations, wages, hours, other labor conditions, opportunity for promotion, regularity of work, and educational and technical courses provided, are presented. Manuals of emergency legislation. Defense of the Realm Manual (3d enlarged edition), revised to February 28, 1917. Edited by Alexander Pulling. London, March, 1917. 537 pp. Contains the Defense of the Realm Acts and Regulations, orders of a general character made under the regulations, and an analytical index to acts, regulations, orders, and notes. Food supply manual (1st edition), revised to May 15, 1917. Edited by Alexander Pulling. London, May, 1917. 112 pp. Price, 18. This manual comprises all the legislation affecting the food controller and the orders, other than those of a purely administrative character, issued by him. It is divided into two parts: Constitution and powers of the Ministry of Food and Orders of the food controller as to maintenance of food supply. There is an analytical index giving, under the name of each article of food which is the subject of restrictions or conditions, direct reference to orders, etc., affecting that article. - Ministry of Munitions. Health of Munition Workers Committee. Memorandum No. 16. Medical certificates for munition workers. London, 1917. 4 pp. Price 1d. This publication presents a form of medical certificate for munition workers, prepared to obtain from employees absent on account of sickness certain information not heretofore collected, especially with reference to cause of illness or its probable duration. Furthermore, it appears that workers have not been required to state whether immediate absence from work is essential or whether it can be postponed for a brief period until the particular job has been completed. The new form is intended to meet these difficulties. This memorandum is reprinted in full in Bulletin No. 230 of this bureau. GREAT BRITAIN.-Ministry of Munitions. Health of Munition Workers Committee. Memorandum No. 17. Health and welfare of munition workers outside the factory. London, 1917. 9 pp. This memorandum is reviewed on pages 91 and 92 of this issue of the MONTHLY REVIEW. Annuario Statistico Somewhat de ITALY.-Direzione Generale della Statistica e del Lavoro. Italiano, anno 1915. Series II, Vol. 5. Rome, 1916. The official statistical yearbook of Italy for the year 1915. layed in publication on account of the war, this yearbook contains in 22 chapters the same data as in previous issues brought up to 1915. Of interest to labor the volume contains statistical data as to the number of workers employed in the principal industry groups, wholesale and retail prices, employers' and workmen's organizations, periodical migrations of workmen within Italy, wages and hours of labor in selected industries, convict labor, strikes, woman and child labor, industrial courts and workmen's insurance. Ufficio del Lavoro Relazione su l'applicazione della legge sul lavoro delle donne e dei fanciulli dal 25 Luglio 1907 al 31 Dicembre 1914. Rome, 1916. 419 pp. 3 charts. This is the seventh periodical report of the Italian labor office to Parliament on the application of the law on woman and child labor. The report consists of four parts. Part 1 gives the full text of all legislation on woman and child labor in force on December 31, 1914. Part 2 gives all administrative measures for the application of such legislation. Part 3 is given over to compilation of court decisions, and Part 4 to statistical data on woman and child labor. The contents of the present volume will be discussed in a future issue of the MONTHLY REVIEW. NEW ZEALAND.—[Registrar General's Office] Official yearbook, 1916. (25th year of issue.) Wellington, March 1, 1917. 710 pp. Several items in this yearbook are of interest to labor. The number of oldage pensioners on March 31, 1916, was 19,804, an increase of 452 or 2.3 per cent over 1915, and the amount paid out in pensions during the year ending on that date, was £479,339 ($2,332,703.24) an increase of 4 per cent over 1915, the cost per head of population being 8s. 9d. ($2.13) as against 8s. 5d. ($2.05) in 1915. The number of widows' pensions in force on March 31, 1916, was 1,890, an increase of 5.7 per cent over the preceding year, and the amount paid to them was £36,357 ($176,931.34), an increase of 15 per cent over 1915. There was but one strike of any importance, involving 233 workers who asked for an increase of 10 per cent in wages. This had not been settled on March 31, 1916. Of 177 disputes dealt with by the commissioners and councils of conciliation, 134 (75.7 per cent) were settled or substantially settled by them. The total number of men for whom employment was found during the year ending March 31, 1916, was 5,978, 4,394 (73.5 per cent) of whom were laborers and 612 (10.2 per cent) of whom were carpenters, the next largest number assisted. During the same period work was found for 2,192 women, mostly for domestic service. The retail price changes, taking the average aggregate annual expenditure for four chief centers, 1909-1913, as the base or 1,000, are indicated by the following index numbers for the calendar years 1908, 1914, and 1915: INDEX NUMBERS OF RETAIL PRICES, 1908, 1914, AND 1915, BASED ON THE AVERAGE AGGREGATE ANNUAL EXPENDITURE IN FOUR CHIEF CENTERS, 1909-1913, REPRESENTED BY 1,000. SWEDEN.-Sociala Meddelanden utgivna av K. Socialstyrelsen. 1917. No. 4. Stockholm, Review of labor conditions in Sweden and certain foreign countries, cost of living and the war, retail and wholesale prices, and miscellaneous labor notes. UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO LABOR. ACWORTH, W. M. Historical sketch of Government ownership of railroads in foreign countries. Presented to the Joint Committee of Congress on Interstate Commerce. Washington, D. C. May, 1917. 63 pp. A brief for private ownership and, incidentally, for increased rates for United States railroads, by one of the best informed authorities on the subject of railways. A considerable majority of the nations have decided in favor of entire or partial State ownership, the United States and the United Kingdom being the only nations of the first rank that have not taken this step. Notwithstanding this fact, "it is probably safe to make the broad statement that two-thirds of the railway mileage of the world has been built; two-thirds of the railway capital of the world has been provided; and two-thirds of the current railway work of the world is done by private enterprise; and only the remaining third by national undertakings." AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE. Annals, vol. 72. America's relation to the world conflict and to the coming peace. July, 1917. 250 pp. Papers on America's relation to the world conflict and her obligation as the defender of international right, on the rights of small nations, and on the elements and problems of a just and durable peace, and America's participation in a league for its maintenance. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR LABOR LEGISLATION. Labor law administration in September issue of the AMERICAN RAILWAY ASSOCIATION. Special Committee on National Defense. Pp. A thesis founded on the dynamic, as opposed to the quantity, theory of money. ASHE, SYDNEY WHITMORE. Organization in accident prevention. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co. (Inc.), 1917. 130 pp. Illustrated. Successful educational experiences in organizing safety work, under the following heads: I. Fellowship, system, education, discipline; II. Specific accidents which may be reduced by educational means; III. Medical and physical examination of employees, with special reference to tuberculosis and hernia; IV. Emergency hospitals and first-aid work; V. Records, analysis, ratio curves; VI. Accident relationships. The author is in charge of the educational and welfare department of the Pittsfield works of the General Electric Co. and is otherwise identified with the safety movement. ASSOCIATION OF CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. Monthly proceedings and report of meeting of executive council, May 9, 1917. London, 1917. pp. 21-41. Includes resolutions and recommendations on the subject of British and enemy shipping. AUSTRALIAN LABOR FEDERATION, W. A. DIVISION. Report of proceedings of general council (congress), Kalgoorlie, W. A., May-June, 1916. Peoples Printing and Publishing Co. of W. A., Ltd., 38-40 Stirling Street, Perth. 62 pp. BAUER, STEPHAN. Sozialpolitik im Kriege und nach Friedenschluss. Zürich, 1917. 28 pp. (Schweizerische Vereinigung zur Förderung des internationalen Arbeiterschutzes. Veröffentlichungen, Heft 42.) A paper on "Social policies during the war and after the conclusion of peace," read before the Swiss section of the International Association for Labor Legislation by the director of the International Labor Office in Basel, in which the author suggests that the economic measures taken by belligerent and neutral countries since the outbreak of the war may make necessary radical changes in the social policies of all civilized countries. He analyzes and reviews the economic measures enacted, gives statistical data as to the results, and discusses the policies which the changed conditions will make necessary, suggesting, among other things, State control of all necessities. He predicts great industrial activity after the war, followed by a crisis, and suggests means of making the crisis less acute. BOYD, JAMES HARRINGTON. Socialization of the law. In American Journal of Sociology, May, 1917. pp. 822-837. "To-day the dominant phases of the development of American jurisprudence are those exhibited by the socialization of the law, on the one hand, along the lines of social-insurance laws which are based upon the public purpose involved in providing for the laboring classes a normal physical existence for the whole life consistent with a wholesome moral and social welfare, and in the regulation of hours and conditions of employment of women, and prohibiting the employment of children under a certain age, the fixing of a minimum wage, public health and morals; on the other hand, in providing such remedies by legislative action as eliminate the friction and economic waste arising out of conflicts between groups of employees and their employers over wages and conditions of employment." BRITISH LABOR PARTY. Report of sixteenth annual conference, held in Manchester, January 23 to 26, 1917. London, 1917. 170 pp. The report of the sixteenth annual conference of the labor party of Great Britain, specially called, in the first instance, to deal with after-the-war problems, and the largest ever held. The membership of the party is about two and one-quarter millions. The report of the conference covers 69 pages of small print and contains the resolutions passed on a number of important questions, including, besides military and industrial demobilization measures, the part of labor in the present government, the Clyde deportations, the nationalization of railways, and other matters. The report of the executive committee and the parliamentary report are given in full. In Appendix VII is an account of the reception by the prime minister, on March 6, of the deputation presenting the resolutions adopted by the conference. BROWNLIE, J. T. The engineers' case for an eight-hour day. Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Great Britain [no date]. 16 pp. A pamphlet in answer to the question, addressed to the trade-union representatives by the Engineering Employers' Federation, What security can be offered to employers that reduction of hours will not result in a reduction of output? Statistics in regard to the increased output that followed the introduction, by legislation, of the 10-hour day, are well known to students of industrial history, but figures in reference to output under an 8-hour day are not published and are not available to the ordinary student. The author therefore cites several cases of the operation of the 8-hour system, with unvarying testimony as to its profitableness. The foreword, contributed by the general secretary of the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades, credits Mr. Brownlie's arguments with being "a clear and succinct statement of the case for an 8-hour day, and furnishing, perhaps, the first practical and scientific statement ever issued in furtherance of this movement for a substantial reduction of hours without loss of wages." CHARTRES, JOHN. Judicial interpretations of the Munitions of War Acts, 1915 and 1916. London, Stevens & Sons, 1917. 76 pp. A handbook designed "to facilitate reference to any relevant passage in the judgments delivered in munitions tribunal appeal cases." The greater number of the decisions cited have to do with the leaving-certificate provisions of the act. COOPERATIVE UNION LIMITED (UNITED KINGDOM). The 48th annual congress, 1916. Proceedings. Published by Cooperative Union, Limited, Holyoake House, Hanover St., Manchester. 855 pp. The proceedings of the forty-eighth annual congress of the cooperative, distributive, and productive societies of the United Kingdom held at Lancaster, England, June 12 to 14, 1916. About 1,350 delegates were in attendance. The societies had at that time a membership of 3,310,724, the trade done during the year amounting to £165,634,195 ($806.058.810). Approximately 30 per cent of the employees of the societies are members of the Amalgamated Union of Cooperative Employes, formed in 1891 as the Manchester District Cooperative Employes' Association and amalgamated with other associations a few years later. Disputes with this organization, together with the allied conciliation boards, hours and wages boards, and a cooperative defense committee, were the subject of a considerable part of the debate of the congress. The report includes a paper on the "Economic results of the war and their effect upon the cooperative movement," by F. Hall, adviser of studies, Cooperative Union, and one on the "War, education, and cooperation," by A. L. Smith, master of Balliol College, Oxford. |